


Ineffable

by divinince



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood, Eye Trauma, F/M, Fluff, Graphic Description, Minor Character Death, Neck trauma, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Romance, Teen Pregnancy, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-05-09 23:49:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14725938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divinince/pseuds/divinince
Summary: Three times when Link couldn't speak and the one time he did.





	1. Chapter 1

He’s home, _finally_ home (wherever home may be), and the ranch hasn’t changed a bit. The cows still graze quietly, the chickens still peck and cluck mindlessly, and Ingo, in the distance, can be heard shooing crows away from the crop. Everything is the same as he left it, and he starts towards the farmhouse, eager to begin working once again.

Except, when he enters the farmhouse, it isn’t. Furniture has been rearranged, and looking him in the eyes is Malon, but a few inches taller and a few years wiser than the girl he left three… no, six… no, an indefinite amount of time ago.

Still, after a dumbfounded pause, she grins and envelopes Link in her arms. Her laugh is velvetine and welcoming, and Link holds onto her. She’s his friend, she’s his home, and he thanks Hylia that she doesn’t let him go.

“It’s been three years, Link,” she laments through her tears, and Link supposes it has. The fickle flow of time in Termina kept him eleven years old forever, but in the reflection of the first puddle he came upon in Hyrule, he saw the past three years etched into his features.

( _Three years_ , he reasoned, _and seven more_.)

Nearly ten minutes pass before Malon pulls away from Link, youthful eagerness shining in her eyes. She forces him to have a seat and starts making dinner, explaining herself as she waltzes through the kitchen.

“We were having chicken anyway, but I’ll make it better for a special occasion.”

“Ingo will be a happy to know that I took over dinner but unhappy that he’s stuck doing the dishes.” (She says this with a smirk and a wink that Link can't help but chuckle at.)

“Father will be home in a couple hours, but for now, it’s just us.”

When she leans up against the table and _grins_ , Link doesn’t know when she became so beautiful. He stands to match her height and watches her with a soft glance, and she seems to bask in his stare. He hears her next words without really listening, focusing instead on all he’s missed in three years. He wonders if Talon or Ingo missed him — the extra help around the farm surely was appreciated  — and if his old forest friends still remain. He wonders about the colorful cast of characters he had known in a previous timeline, wonders if they’re still thriving. He wonders if the princess has asked about him.

He’s not listening to Malon’s words, instead listening to the eager tone and gentle inflection. Her voice is like honey, sweet and inviting, and Link is absolutely stuck to it, even if the words from her mouth escape his mind.

“Link.”

Link catches his name only because she caresses his cheek when she says it. Her hands are calloused and warm.

Link melts into her touch; it’s been awhile since he’s felt any affection.

“Link,” repeats Malon, almost teasing him, “I don’t think you were listening.” She’s definitely teasing, a certain sparkle in her eye. “Where have you been the past three years?”

The memories flood his mind, and he takes a sharp breath. He can’t find the words to describe Termina; horrifying, yes, but also humbling, because he hadn’t left Hyrule to once again become the hero forgotten across seven years of life. He left to find a childhood friend tangled in the web of time.

Another voice in Link’s mind suggested otherwise. Perhaps he chose to save the country due to persuasion of the Mask Salesman — no, that wasn’t it, for he was long past caring for Termina itself. He cared for the people, but saving people from a never-ending apocalypse was hardly heroic.

The words, theories, ideas swirl inside of Link’s head, pounding against his skull with cruel and hopeless abandon. Malon notices the confusion and guilt contort his features and coos softly.

“We can talk about it when you’re ready,” Malon says, lowering Link into a kitchen chair. Link nods apprehensively.

She slides him a glass of water; Link sips it slowly, and when the liquid and his thoughts intertwine, his stomach twists violently.

He wants to tell her, but he can’t: he doubts that he will ever be ready.


	2. Chapter 2

They originally weren’t going to let Link into the military at fifteen years old. _Maybe when you’re older,_ the old general teased, surveying Link’s figure as though the thought of such a small boy wanting to be a successful soldier amused him beyond all measures. Link told the man that he was an accomplished swordsman, and after the man finished laughing, he brought in a young sergeant, a swordplay protégé.

Link bested the trainer to everyone’s surprise but his own. After a stunned stupor, the general aggressively shook his hand and gave him the date to report to the palace for training.

And he’s there now, enduring the stares and whispers of fellow trainees. He’s younger and smaller than many of the men, but the general makes it clear that Link could best any of them (and Link pretends the remark isn’t a thinly-veiled insult).

He remembers the previous night when another trainee says that he must have “slept like shit.” He remembers when Malon told him that he couldn’t leave, because he just came home; he tries to forget the crack in her voice when she says she can’t _bear_ to lose him again.

He’s engaging in (and winning) a fight against another soldier, a twenty-year-old Castle Town citizen who ought to be better than Link in every facet of life, when he catches the eye of the Princess of Hyrule.

Though Link and Zelda had exchanged many letters since his return from Termina, he had yet to tell the princess of his militaristic endeavors. Knowing her opinions on the war with the Gerudo, he figured she would be quite angry with him.

He rescinds from the fight and watches Zelda’s mouth as she speaks to the old general, who then motions towards Link.

“Old sport!” he proclaims in a jovial voice. Link smiles weakly; the princess’ glare stings him through his training gear. “Her Highness here told me she wished to speak to you!”

He can already hear her spitting bitter words, and his palms begin to sweat. He doesn’t fear anything, but he fears Zelda. She’s grown, too, just like Malon, but wears an air of viciousness unknown in previous timelines.

(Link also notices the large white diamond on her left ring finger, a contrast from the rest of her regalia. He considers her age and his stomach twists; who would marry a child?)

“Come with me,” she hisses, and Link has not option but to follow. She leads him out of the courtyard and into a barren castle hall, and Link tries to smile for her, soft and nervous.

“What on earth are you doing? You’re not old enough to join the military, not to mention that this cause…” She looks at the men in the courtyard before sighing. “You don’t want to fight this war, Link.”

Link wants to ask her why, to tell her that it’s his duty above all else to fight for his country, but he can only stare at her with guilty eyes. His gaze travels down her figure to her left hand, still befuddled by the ring decorating her finger. A million more questions swarm in his head, itching to know who, why, and when -- she’s never mentioned this in their letters -- and his face must give him away. Zelda points over his shoulder.

“Sergeant Kilian gave it to me,” she explains carefully, her voice revealing no feelings of love or affection. “My father wanted me to be wed before he passed, so we’ll be getting married next month. You can come if you’d like.”

Link looks over his shoulder to the dashing young sergeant, the very man he bested in swordplay nearly a month ago. The sergeant breaks from his fight, waves to the princess, and casts a bitter look towards Link.

The fifteen-year-old wonders from where such distaste stems. Does the man still hold a grudge after being defeated? Link hopes not; Sergeant Kilian himself seemed entranced by his skill. _Such a grudge is petty_ , considers Link, _because someone is_ always _better than you_.

He thinks of Skull Kids and Gerudo kings and all the battles he has faced, wondering if they were ever better than him. Perhaps he is skilled with a sword, but perhaps, by some twist of fate, he’s lucky. Lucky to be alive despite so many villains is an admirable trait, and he wonders if that's his only skill.

Link remembers Sheik, likely a stronger and more agile soldier, and stares at Princess Zelda with wide eyes. She has been talking this whole time, but Link ignores her to observe the gap that hardly exists between them.

The sergeant’s look is one of jealousy, and Link shudders. He’d never feel that way about Zelda.

“You’re not _listening_ , Link!” Zelda hisses, and Link flinches; he’s neither heard so much anger nor felt so much shame in the two lifetimes he has lived. Shrugging meekly, he watches her lips curl around her words.

“You should go home,” she declares, her face contorted by sadness and a hint of shame. “You have no business being here, and it’d be better if you left right now.” She turns on her heel, eager to retreat inside the castle. “This isn’t our… _your_ war to fight, Link.”

And she’s gone, carrying with her guilt spanning generations and timelines of wrongdoing.

The same guilt settles into Link’s mind as he seethes at her final words. How can she deny that the war is his doing? Had he not been so complacent in returning to his previous life, the war with the Gerudo would never have started. Hyrule had been saved, yet Link so selfishly erased its safety.

(He tries, oh, does he try, to tell himself it was Zelda’s idea to send him back, but he cannot stay mad at her. She’s done too much for him to ever feel anything but grateful.)

When Link returns to training, he’s approached by Sergeant Kilian, who says he looks absolutely pitiful. He asks if Link fears a little princess like Zelda.

Link returns to his previous fight, resisting the urge to punch the man’s smarmy grin off his face. Hylia knows he deserves it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains graphic depictions of physical violence. If you do not feel comfortable proceeding but wish to know what happens this chapter, feel free to shoot me a message [here](hyliastoria.tumblr.com). Feel free to redirect any other questions there as well.

Despite being the Hero That Time Forgot, Link hates fighting. He hates war, hates the cold of the battlefield and the nostalgia for home, hates the moon that beats down on the Desert Colossus as he seeks asylum for the night.

He’s sixteen years old and already trusted to perform solo excursions. Of course he is, because, given his history, he is clearly gifted in every facet of physical prowess, but that doesn’t mean Link’s stomach doesn’t turn whenever the old general tells him that he trains like he wants to be the Hero of Legend.

The Goddess of the Sand towers over her desert, offering strength and love to the Gerudo women. Her loving hands, once extended to all who possessed the courage to survive her trials, are crumbled at the entrance, blown off by Hyrulean cannons. Still the Gerudo worship in the depths of her temple, coming and going despite the bombs that resound in the distance. Their Goddess, though disrespected by outsiders, reigns tall and supreme.

Such disrespect causes Link’s vision to go red. How would the Hyrulean soldiers feel if the Gerudo dared deface the image of Hylia? If Link was a religious man, he knows that he would be seething, but the generals? They don’t care. They want their paycheck; they want to please the king and queen.

(The generals use Link’s femininity to their advantage and have some of their wives make him up to be a lovely young woman. The ladies comment on the scars that line his bare back and midriff but also say that his wife -- he doesn’t know how old they think he is -- must be a lucky woman. He makes a note to tell Malon as soon as he returns home.)

Link’s excursion consists entirely of watching the Goddess of the Sand and her temple, for the military has supposedly caught wind that they’re using the temple to plot an ambush. Though Link believes such a thought is horse manure, he says nothing. He never says anything.

He gives the Gerudo chieftess a note forged by his superiors; he is a young Castle Town woman wishing to research Gerudo customs for a university class. The chieftess seems a bit suspicious, but tells Link that it’s not his fault. Rather, she doesn’t know who to trust anymore.

“You, of course, seem to be a perfectly honest young woman,” she explains. “Will you need assistance traversing the desert?”

And of course Link says no, because he never has and never will. The chieftess calls him a good girl, a strong girl, the beginnings of what she would call the ideal Gerudo warrior.

Once out of her sight, Link vomits up his morning meal, sickened by his true intentions, by his betrayal of the woman’s trust.

After a day of touring the temple and asking the other visitors completely unassuming questions, he sets up camp beside the desert oasis and downs two canteens of water. He’s nauseous with guilt as he considers the mission: he hasn’t necessarily failed it, because he hasn’t heard any incriminating information, but he could be doing better. Looking harder.

But he can’t and he knows that. He wants the war to be over soon, just as many of the Gerudo in the temple said they did, and he can’t imagine betraying an entire race due to the wrongdoings of one evil man. He has been doing that, though, for nearly a year, and all the water he swallowed so quickly threatens to make its reappearance.

Link lulls himself to sleep against the pangs of guilt in his chest and wakes under a starless blanket, the sound of slow footsteps crunching the desert sand.

Slowly, he opens his eyes and sits up. The figure is no Gerudo, for they are dressed too conservatively and don’t appear to present in a feminine manner, and he reaches for the dagger tucked away in his satchel.

Before Link can even get close enough to swing at the figure, they turn around and stare at Link with a single wide eye before retreating. Link recognizes the form of the runner almost immediately and his heart jumps; he chases after the person with one word yearning to roll from his tongue.

_Sheik._

Sheik may be fast, but, unlike seven years ago, is clearly out of practice. Link catches up to him rather quickly and tackles him to the ground, eliciting a scream from the young man. Link hurries to quiet him, the still night of the desert anything but trustworthy.

“What are you doing here, Link?” he hisses, shoving Link off of his form and rising from the sand. Link wants to ask the same question and then some: how did you get here, why are you doing this, and is this allowed?

Dusting the sand from his clothing, Sheik glares at Link and motions to his haphazardly-build campsite.

“What do they have you doing?” he asks in voice too kind to be accompanying such a glare. Link stands to full height, shifts uncomfortably as sand falls into his clothing, and remains silent. He and Sheik both know what he’s doing.

But neither of them can bring themselves to say the words, and instead, Sheik sighs, staring off towards the colossal Goddess of the Sand. Link thinks she’s beautiful, powerful, and wishes that the Hyruleans didn’t want to destroy her.

Sheik steals the thoughts from Link’s mind. “She really is beautiful. Strong, too. My nursemaid had me learning about Gerudo culture until…” Until the pair foiled Ganondorf’s plans, until the war started, until Impa was fired. “But Father said no more, so there was no more.”

“It’s a shame that my men have done this to her,” Sheik laments, crack in his voice. Link can only nod in agreement. “I wish it didn’t have to be like this. I wish I could’ve ended it all.”

Silence fills the air. Link shifts his weight from his left foot to his right and switches the hand that holds his dagger.

“I could have. Instead -- Hylia, curse me -- I started it all.”

Before Link can extend a comforting hand, Sheik stares up at the moon. He appears more mature now than he did in the previous timeline, more hardened by the weight of the monarchy than Link’s fate.

Guilt has a tendency to age people, and Link knows that. He has seen it in himself.

(He still cannot force himself to stare up at the moon, even after all these years.)

“Link,” Sheik states, forcing Link away from his thoughts, “do you remember the song I taught you here? I believe it was the Requiem of--”

“Halt, _voe_!”

There is no time to process the chieftess’ booming voice before Link turns around and sees the woman approaching Sheik with a raised sword. Link does the only thing he knows how to do, the only thing he’s good for, the thing he spent seven years sleeping for.

He jumps in front of Sheik and screams as the silver blade slices through his right eye. He sees red once again, both literally and figuratively, and tightly fists his dagger before reaching up and plunging it into the chieftess’ throat. She shrieks, too, the sound agonizing and horrific and wretched, before blood begins to flow from her mouth.

She loses consciousness and falls to her knees, and the fight is over before it has even started.

“Link!” Sheik forgets his distant and mature demeanor as Link covers his eye -- or, rather, where his eye once was. He wants to remain strong, pretend as though nothing is the matter, but he’s crying, crying much harder than he has in many years, and the world around him is blurring. His eye hurts something awful, and the metallic smell and taste of his blood floods his senses. He grabs onto Sheik with both hands as shock overwhelms him, and the man’s sleeve is covered in blood.

Link has been injured before, and he knows this. He wants to say that he has sustained much worse, that he will survive this like every other wound.

But it isn’t the wound that bothers him. It’s the twitching body of the Gerudo chieftess that he and Sheik are leaving behind, gurgling as blood fills her throat, gasping for air that will never fill her lungs.

He has faced a million villains in his lifetime, but never one so sentient, never as kind, respectful, or welcoming as her. All these years, he’s never killed someone so human.

Link breaks free of Sheik’s grasp and collapses over the chieftess’ corpse, attempting to shake her back to life. He screams at her yells for her to awaken, apologizing a thousand times over.

She remains limp, a ragdoll in his arms. Sheik forces Link away from her body as his vision blackens.

He wakes back at the palace, Malon by his side. He promptly retches when he sees her, her red hair reminiscent of the locks of the Gerudo chieftess, and doesn’t close his eye again for two nights.

When he finally manages to fall asleep, head in Malon’s lap as she sings familiar lullabies, he dreams of a fallen member of the Royal Guard slumped against the walls of a Castle Town building as Ganondorf’s clutches take the last of his life. The guard was innocent, the guard was young, with a whole life ahead of him, and in an instant, Ganondorf had taken it all away.

He awakes as a scream passes through his throat, haunted by the realization that he and Ganondorf are one and the same.


	4. Chapter 4

He shouldn’t sit on the bed of the Queen of Hyrule. He shouldn’t even be in her private chamber, especially when her stomach is heavily swollen with her unborn child, but he knows his privileges extend far beyond those of the other knights and soldiers.

She stands in front of her mirror; she has spent most of her adolescence obsessed with her appearance, an obsession never observed in the previous timeline. Link wants to believe that he simply never noticed; however, one timeline ago, she had no reason to be so occupied with the curvature of her waist, the rise of her breasts, or the daintiness of her legs.

Outside of the castle, the chanting protesters have diminished into a dull chatter. They spend their days grinding the sufferings of the Gerudo women into Zelda’s skull, begging -- no, demanding -- for the end of the war. They frequent phrases such as ‘genocide’ and ‘anarchy,’ and Link can’t help but agree with their words.

But, to no one’s surprise, their words make Zelda ill; she hasn’t made a public appearance since she announced her pregnancy, aware that her words will forever be overshadowed until she declares the end of the war.

The queen observes her profile with a critical eye. Her gaze lingers on her stomach, as does Link’s, and he can’t help but wonder if she should be bigger.

(Her new nursemaid scolded her at dinner for not eating enough; she reasoned that stress had taken her appetite.)

“Link.” Dropping her hands from her stomach, Zelda turns towards her former hero and sighs, slow and deep. “I don’t want to be a mother.”

Of course, Link already knows this. She’s seventeen, still a child in every definition of the word, and when she told him of her pregnancy in the safety of a broom closet, teary-eyed and hyperventilating, Link wanted to be angry. He wanted to storm up to Sergeant Kilian, promoted to a prince in his marriage to Zelda, and knock every last tooth out of his smart mouth.

He was still disoriented from his recent injury, however, and figured throwing a punch would end him up on the ground, not to mention that the queen _begged_ him not to, grabbed onto his sleeve and sobbed until he promised not to storm her husband’s (her dirty, no-good husband’s) study.

The bed sinks underneath Zelda’s weight as she sits beside Link, hands folded in her lap. He knows she’s yearning for the seventeen of timelines prior, when she and Link were too busy saving Hyrule to concern themselves with the happenings of a monarchy. Back then, their war was one against a true evil, one with a common cause.

In the previous timelines, they were allies, united by justice. Now, though he will never tell her, Link isn’t sure where he stands, but he knows it isn’t with her and her war. Physically, though he may be a part of her army, he is mentally far, far away from her cause.

“I don’t want to do _any_ of this anymore,” the queen admits, gnawing on one of her fingernails. Link flashes back to when he first met Sheik, first watched the young man gnaw away at his fingernails as he surveyed the beast in their wake. He was handsome then, and Zelda is beautiful now, though her visage, nails stubby and bloody, hair thin, skin pale, hardly reflects the person she once was.

“Going back,” she tells Link, biting her nail too deep, “was the worst decision I ever made for both of us. I… I wish I had one more chance to fix this.”

Link nods slowly; going back absolutely _was_ terrible for the both of them, but he’ll never tell her that. At the time, she thought she was making the right decision, and Link would forever support Zelda in her pursuit of fixing the brokenness in the world.

When she locks eyes with him, blue eyes desperate and hungry, he knows what she’s going to say. When she grasps his hands tight, he turns his head, refusing to give into her yearning stare.

When she speaks, her voices cracks, and she says everything Link predicted, word for word.

“Link, we should run away together.”

She’s seventeen and desperate. She’s seventeen, desperate, and yearning for the solace of a dream, coping with all the wrong mechanisms. Link understands it. He understands the desperation in her voice when he’s rattled with nightmares and flashbacks, when an arrow pierces the skin of an imagined enemy -- for Din’s sake, he, too, looks in the mirror and wants to exit his body, scarred and eyeless and hardly the hero he once knew.

But he knows. He knows he can’t leave, not yet, not when his battalion and Epona and Malon, his beloved Malon, wait for him on the other side.

Link’s lack of an answer speaks clearly to Zelda, tears welling in her eyes as he slowly looks back towards her. The way she says his name, crack in her voice, breaks his heart, but he doesn’t change his mind.

“I can’t do this,” she pleads, grabbing for his calloused hand. “Link, my life is a lie! I’m fighting a war started by my own idiocy under the guise of protecting my country! It was so selfish of me to…”

To preserve Link’s childhood, or so he thinks she wants to say.

“It’s my own fault that I’m suffering.” A hand retreats to her stomach, the other hand still caressing one of his. “I’m not happy. I’m married to a man I don’t love, fighting a war I don’t want, carrying a child I’m scared I’ll never love… Link?”

He silently begs he won’t ask again, but his luck as of recent has been virtually nonexistent.

“Run away with me, please. I’m in love with you, and we can start over, no queens or heroes or anything. Please, we would be hap--”

“ _No_ , Zelda.”

His voice is raspy but sharp, rusty and deadly, and it’s enough to command silence in the queen herself. He immediately retreats into himself, ashamed to have snapped at her, both as a subject and a friend.

Her silence (or was it fear? Does Zelda fear him?) lasts only a minute. “Link, why not? I’m in love with you, and I don’t know…”

“Because, Zelda.” He speaks softly but intently, because he needs her to listen. “I love you, sure, but I’m not in love with you.” The hurt in her eyes reflects sadness, not anger, but he doesn’t care how she looks at him: the guilt will devour him regardless.

“I got a life here, Zelda,” he explains, slowly reaching for her hand. She doesn’t fight him. “I got a job, a good gig…” He glosses over Malon, but Zelda knows. Zelda knows every detail of her, knows how dearly Link loves her.

“And I know it’s awful Zel… shucks, you and I are the _only_ ones who know how awful it is. But, Zel, listen, look at me, please.” A squeeze of her hand sends electricity up his spine, more supernatural than romantic, a union of holy essences as opposed to a union of lovers. “It’ll get better.”

Images of dying fathers, of dark beasts, of skull kids and hurling moons and Gerudo chiefs swarm his mind. He knows the both of them have suffered greatly, but somehow, they’ve landed on the right timeline, the timeline where they survive into adulthood.

“It sucks, don’t it?” he asks her, the faintest of laughs escaping his throat. He takes the sleeve of his tunic and wipes away one of the queen’s tears. “We got a second chance and still weren’t allowed to have a childhood.”

“Cruel trick of the Goddesses,” she scorns, but the slightest smile graces her lips as she buries her head in Link’s shoulder.

“Yeah, it is.” Wrapping an arm around the queen, Link sighs. If they had landed on any other timeline, perhaps he would’ve fallen in love with her. Perhaps they would’ve married on the dawn of her eighteenth birthday, silver crown and silken veil hiding her beauty. Perhaps the ring hugging her finger would have been a product of the best Goron jewellers, forged of lava and the best gemstones rupees could buy.

Somehow, Link is grateful that the timeline that they stumbled upon wasn’t that one.

“Life is strange, ain’t it?”

Zelda giggles into his shoulder; she’s always eaten his accent up.

“Strange,” she echoes, “and terrible.”

“I know,” admits Link, giving Zelda a gentle squeeze.

He allows her to fall asleep on her shoulder, very aware of the safety his presence grants her (in fact, it’s the same safety he feels when wrapped in Malon’s arms). When her husband returns from the stately duties Link couldn’t possibly care less about, he almost screams. He almost makes a heinous accusation against Link, but Link silences him with half a glare, though twice as powerful.

Two years ago, Link bested Kilian at swords. Link almost didn’t feel guilty that he bested him in winning Zelda’s affection, too.

When he returns home the next evening, Malon is preparing for bed, singing to herself as she waltzes across the room, a goddess in a nightgown. She giggles when Link sweeps her into his arms, kissing her face and curling her hair around his fingers. He falls into bed with her and listens as she talks about the happenings of the ranch, the happy little horses and chirpy little cuccos more interesting than any journey Link had experienced.

He loves her, loves the mundane and beautiful life which she lives. He loves when she sings to the horses and when she scolds a freeloading cucco, and he loves how she sways with each step, a product of the Goddesses themselves.

Whilst snuggled up in bed, Malon asks him if he’d ever marry her. He chuckles, honey in his voice, and says he’ll consider it. When he falls asleep with his face buried in her burning red curls, he does not have a nightmare.

Link marries her on the dawn of her eighteenth birthday, flower crown adorning the red curls that frame her beautiful face. The ring he slides on her finger is the product of the finest Goron jeweller, forged from scalding lava and glittering emerald reminiscent of his youth.

The queen attends the ceremony, and she and Link tease one another endlessly, a memory of youth almost abandoned. Link loves her, loves her smile and her laugh, loves the fleeting moment when she isn’t haunted by the war at her feet, but he knows there is no romance in his feelings for her.

Planting a chaste kiss on Malon’s lips after swearing on Hylia’s name to love her forever, Link knows he has landed on the right timeline, the most dreadful and insufferable yet beautiful timeline.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, dear reader, for finishing Ineffable. What started as an experimental MaLink oneshot became an entire character study for the Hero that Time Forgot, and your attention and support have made the journey absolutely wonderful. While I apology for the semester-long hiatus, I do believe that makes the ending all the better. <3
> 
> For those of you that have read my Twilight Princess story, Hylian Reverie, do you notice any similarities in dialogue between the Links? Like grandfather, like grandson, I suppose. :p


End file.
